


but my heart is honest

by polyamory



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Everyone is Trans, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Past Character Death, Past Rape/Non-con, Support Group
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-19
Updated: 2016-07-19
Packaged: 2018-07-25 09:41:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 3,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7527772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/polyamory/pseuds/polyamory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>support group fic in which everyone is trans and talks about gender and past trauma</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Derek

**Author's Note:**

> derek talks about his experience with carl buford, aaron talks about haley's death and jj talks about her sister's suicide. all of these things are mentioned but never graphically described or anything but this fic is very heavy as it deals with the aftermath of these traumas so proceed with caution
> 
> if you have any questions/ want more detailed warnings feel free to shoot me a message!

"After, after what happened to me," he swallows. "After I was, raped," he forces himself to say, "I was– I hated my body.

There were a lot of times when I just– I couldn't even look into the mirror because I thought it was, I don't know – somehow it was my fault, that it was something in the way I looked, that if I looked different maybe this wouldn't have happened to me, maybe he wouldn't have raped me.

And the hatred of my body and hatred of everything, everything I am– was," he corrects himself," it's hard to explain how exactly it affected my gender but it's, it's definitely linked somehow. Because whenever I thought 'man' I thought of him and everything he embodied and it made me physically sick. I didn't want to be that. I didn't want to have even that thing in common with him, I didn't want to be like him.

And I know I'm not, I know I never was, but try telling that to a wounded thirteen year old who's isolated himself from everyone around him," he chuckles but there's no humor in it.

"Later when I was in college this rejection of 'man' turned into the opposite, where I was determined not to let him form me, not to let him take things from me anymore and I became very, hyper masculine. I am still to this day very masculine but at the same time there's a part of me that just feels disconnected from maleness, from any gender at all. I think that's, that's the boy that still lives inside of me who thinks he's somehow tainted and so angry at the world it hurts. It just, sometimes the only way I know how to describe it is that it hurts. It all hurts," he finishes.

"Thank you for sharing, Derek," Penelope's voice is soft like a flower petal in the ensuing silence.

"Thank you, Derek," the group echoes.


	2. Aaron

"My wife– my ex-wife at the time was killed because of me. We got divorced but we, we never stopped loving each other. We loved each other so much but we still couldn't make it work," he blinks back tears but they fall anyway, unbidden. "How is that fair? How is that–

She was murdered because of me. My job was the thing that drove us apart and my job was the thing that put her in harm's way. She never did anything to deserve this and it's just, it's just not fair.

Haley was my high school sweetheart. We grew up together and we were supposed to grow old together. She was the single most supportive person in my life. She was with me through my transition, held my hand through every step of it. She was the only person who witnessed it all and now that she's gone sometimes I feel like, is it really real when the only person who remembers except for me is gone? Is it real anymore?" he shakes his head at himself, taking a deep breath in a feasible attempt to calm himself.

"Now it's just me and my son, Jack, and I have to be there for him. He's just a child and he's barely old enough to understand what's going on. But I have to be strong for Jack. That's all– that's all that matters right now and so long as I focus on only that I– I think I'm gonna be okay, at least for now."

"Thank you, Aaron," Penelope's voice is barely louder than a whisper, choked heavy with unshed tears.

"Thank you," the group murmurs, like the sound of waves lapping at the sand.


	3. JJ

"You know, they always talk about the ways in which trauma will affect you and they talk about the flashbacks and the guilt, but they never talk about the little things, the weird things that don't make sense to anyone but you. Like how the scent of cheap rose scented candles will just," she gestures with her hands, struggling for words. "Or how after one job the barking of a dog would without fail make me jump and shiver.

They never talk about those things at the edge of trauma. Like how I can almost, not quite ever meet my own eyes in the mirror, or how the words 'I love you' are supposed to reassure you and sometimes they still make my heart race. I don't know why they never talk about those parts. Maybe because they're harder to quantify, harder to put into words beyond personal experience.

But the thing is, I've always, always wanted to be like my older sister. And when I was, what," she shrugs, "four? Five maybe? I started imitating her. My mom used to joke that I learned to walk like my sister before I could crawl and I learned to speak like my sister before I could talk.

I practiced everyday in front of the mirror. My sister's room was right next to mine and she was on the phone, talking with her friends, and I could hear her through the walls and I would imitate her tone and practice it, repeat the words she said over and over until talking like that came natural.

I would use the same gestures as her, flip my hair over my shoulder just like her, click my heels just like her. I was always looking sideways at her, looking at what she was doing and copying it." She laughs softly, a sad little smile on her face.

"But you know, I never thought there was anything different about that, it was just the way you were suppose to admire your big sister. And then, when she was gone I was so lost all of a sudden. I had to try and figure out how to be my own person, how to be my own girl, without relying solely on her.

And that necklace. God, how I loved that necklace. That night when she gave me the necklace, a lot of the time I think, I should've known something was wrong. When she gave me that necklace I should've known something was going on. But I was only eleven years old and I can't blame myself for something I had no power over.

Her necklace is still special, always will be, and it has helped me through so many bad days. A part of her soul is enclosed in that necklace and on my most dysphoric days I put it on and it reminds me that I am my sister's sister and she would be proud of me."

"Thank you so much for sharing, JJ," Penelope says, a small smile on her bonbon pink lips. There's always a smile on Penelope's lips. If someone needs a smile all they have to do is blink and there she is, a lighthouse in the dark.

"Thank you all for listening," JJ smiles back.


	4. Derek

"I went to an art exhibition this weekend and it was some kind of contemporary, post modern thing and anyway so one of the things was like, just a bunch of old, rusted metal and it made me think of this– this metaphor, and I feel really quite silly sitting here talking about that tired metaphor that I thought up."

"We're here," Penelope encourages softly and Derek nods in thanks.

"So I was thinking, you know, my gender is kind of like that metal. You know, once upon a time I was something whole. Something shiny, something metal, something whole. But then Carl Buford took a sledgehammer to me, like a wrecking ball, and he wrecked me. What happened to me devastated me, it really truly devastated me, especially because I didn't talk about it with anyone at all.

But that, it changed me forever. No matter how much I want that to be not true it is the way it is and I think I have to accept that," Derek rubs a hand over his mouth, making a grimace before he continues. "He changed me. The damage he did to me was irreparable.

So now there's this smashed piece of metal, right? And that's me. That's my body, my soul, my entire self, including my gender. And it's destroyed now. There's nothing shiny about it anymore.

And now it's just left to sit there. And it sits there for years and years and it rusts and it's rained on and it's years before someone looks at it again and sees something worthwhile. And that is, that is what gender feels like right now.

It's been warped and twisted into unrecognizable shapes by the force of my trauma and that's why it's so hard for me to put a name on it.

But I think– I think I'm okay with that? You know, maybe I don't need a label for now, maybe that's something I can think about again later down the line. Maybe I'll be fine without it for now."

"Thank you, Derek," Penelope says. "I think that was a very good metaphor."

"Thanks, baby girl," Derek smiles.


	5. Aaron

"I– um," he shakes his head, laughing at himself, "I took your advice and I– I went on a dating site for people like– for trans people and, I met this very nice woman, Beth, and um– we've been training together for the last couple of weeks, but my triathlon is coming up so I won't be training anymore and I still haven't asked her on a date. I want to but it, it just feels– I don't know it feels some kind of way.

I mean up until now we've always just trained in the park together and it was– more casual, I guess? It wasn't– we never called it a date, but now. Sometimes I still feel like I'm betraying Haley if I start dating again.

But on the other hand I know she would want me to move on and she, she always wanted me to show Jack how wonderful love is and to lead by example and it's– it's harder than I thought it would be because– Jack is all I have now and I'm the only parent he has and, you know, when there was two of us we could balance each other out but now I'm– now I'm Jack's role model and I have to somehow– I'm just afraid I'll mess it up, that I'll be too strict or too this or too that and that– with all the things I see people capable of doing I just don't want my son to grow up to become something like that. I don't want, I guess I don't want to ruin him, could you say that?

Haley was always the warm one, she was the one who guided Jack's emotions. He definitely got a strong sense of morals from me, but I don't know if I can be everything Haley was for him." He takes a deep breath, trying to center himself.

"And then there's, you know, if, when I ask Beth out on a date, what do I tell Jack? When he meets her, how is that going to go? There are just so many things I worry about now as a single parent that I never thought about before and it's, it's all still a little overwhelming at times."

"Thank you for sharing, Aaron. I'm glad things are going better for you," Penelope says.

"Yeah, man," Derek agrees, "good to see you're putting yourself out there again."

"Thank you both," Aaron nods.


	6. JJ

"After my sister died I was, I was beside myself. I slept in her room for weeks and I refused to go back to my own room. My parents could barely step foot into her room, but I couldn't let go. It was like if her room were empty it would be, it would be the last and final thing. It would mean she was really gone, and I just couldn't have that. 

I'd always, I'd take clothes from her, t-shirts, skirts, blouses, and I'd hide them at the bottom of my closet and when I was alone in my room I'd lock the door and I'd but on her clothes. 

After she died I– I remember the first time I wore a skirt outside of my room. I walked into the kitchen where my parents were making breakfast and there was, such silence. I don't think I've ever heard our house this quiet. Then my mother started crying. 

At first they thought my behavior was just a way for me to keep my sister alive, that I wasn't dealing with the loss properly. Which, at that point I wasn't. I even, for a time I took her name, Rosalie, so maybe, I don't know," she shakes her head a little. 

"They got me a therapist and I was so, so lucky – luckier than I even realized back then – to have a therapist who was accepting of trans kids. She was very understanding and she helped me work through a lot of stuff. 

I confided to her for the first time that my– feeling like a girl had started way before my sister's suicide. She helped me a lot and she also showed me that some of the things I was doing weren't healthy, like taking on my sister's name. 

'You can't be your sister,' she used to say, 'you have to be your own person, your own girl.' She also helped me eventually choose my own name, Jennifer." She smiles at that, wistful and a little sad, but still a smile. 

"It was– it was hard for my parents at first to accept that, that I wouldn't just go back to 'normal.' I remember one time my mother when she was in a session with me saying: 'I just lost my daughter, I don't want to lose my son as well.' And my therapist looked her in the eye and said, 'Ma'am, you lost your daughter and that was very hard on your whole family, but if you don't learn to accept Jennifer, you will lose your other daughter as well. Do you really want that?'"


	7. Emily

"So you have to know that I grew up very, publicly because of my mother's work. She's an ambassador and she would take me on public outings and parade me around for the cameras because, y'know, people love children. And she would, god, she would dress me up in these horrible, horrible outfits. Her favorite was a sailor outfit. I remember that one vividly.

But being in the public eye so much meant that my mother– Well, the first thing she always thought about was how this was gonna look to other people and how that was gonna affect her reputation and it was hard as a kid to grow up like that. To not understand, but to know it meant something bad when my mother's lips got all slim like a line and she would raise her eyebrows and say, 'Really? You want to wear  _ that _ ?' or, 'You want to eat  _ all that _ ?' And it was always 'You can't do this, you can't do that' and I never knew why it was so important to her. Why we all had to be trapped in that act with her.

And the first time I wanted to wear a dress I was, I think, six, and it was my first day of school and I had picked out this deep blue dress with a red bow at the back and matching red sandals. And my mother just, she didn't even make that face she just told me flat out no. 'You can't wear that, it's not appropriate. People are going to see you like that and what are they going to think of us, hm? Have you thought about that? No, I didn't think you would.' I thought they would think what nice red sandals I had.

After that I internalized a lot of really hurtful things and basically all my feelings were pushed down and I– I was pretty much dead inside, was how I spent most of my teens because– because I couldn't be the girl I was and it killed me, having to pretend all the time. Because, it was literally all the time, my mother wasn't the only one that made it hard. There were photographers constantly and press people asking questions and all calling my birthname and it was– it was terrible.

As a child I was very silent about my gender issues and I never talked about them, probably because I didn't want to anger my mother, but when later as a teenager I started to talk about it, not in public, but to a few close friends as long as I had them – we moved a lot, finding friends was hard.

When we were in Italy I had two friends, Matthew and John, who I could talk to. That was also the first time I talked to a priest about my 'problems.'" She puts finger quotes around the word. "It did – how do I say this – not go very well. He told me that what I was feeling was wrong and sinful and– a lot of other things a child really shouldn't have to hear about their identity. He said I shouldn't come back until I had found the Lord and repented for my sins.

But Matthew defended me. The next Sunday when I was ready to just, whatever, Matthew pulled me out of bed and came to church with me. He told me to hold my head high and he held my hand and together we walked into the church. We walked right up to the first pew and sat down.The priest stopped his sermon and it was so quiet and he and Matthew just, stared each other down, it was like a battle of wills. And finally, he just went back to his sermon.

That was the first time someone stood up for me and it gave me the power to finally confront my mother. She agreed to call me Emily but only in private, never in public or around guests. It hurt, it really hurt. But I thought, there's nothing to complain about, it's not like she refuses to use my name, it's not like she's kicking me out." She laughs, dry and humorless. "Today I know that what she did was not in any way okay, but as a kid? I was fifteen then and I thought her behavior was okay, I thought I couldn't expect more and that I should be happy with what I got.

I payed for my transition all on my own, every last penny, and it was one hundred percent worth it. As for my mother, we're on speaking terms nowadays, but it's more like, once in a blue moon speaking terms than anything else."

"Thank you for sharing today, Emily," Penelope says.

"It was finally time, I guess," Emily replies with a smile.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm on tumblr as [twlesbians](http://twlesbians.tumblr.com/)


End file.
